07/08/2007
“Here, Let Me Help You With That” (Gal 4:21-5:1)
When we use that phrase, “Here, let me help you with that!” we don’t always mean it to merely offer assistance. Sometimes what we are saying is, “I can’t take it any longer, Here, give me back control over this situation!”
Have you ever noticed how addicted to control you really are?
Have you noticed how hard it is to let go of something and let someone else take over?
It comes out and really shows sometimes, like when we teach our children to do some task or chore.
You show them how to do it, how you do it, then you have to stand back and watch as they try it.
The problem is, they do it differently than you do.
I remember the first time I let Alex mow part of the yard.
I showed him how to do it, he had ridden with me a bunch of times.
I showed him the art of the corner. If you do it just right you can do it in one pass, not backing up, no loops, a good clean corner technique. It took me years to perfect that corner technique.
Then Alex gets out there on his own and he whipping right through those corners, leaving a little strip of grass on each turn. Sometimes he throws it into reverse to go back and get that little strip of grass, sometimes, he just keeps going, he ignores the strip of grass. Then when the whole thing is done, he comes back and makes a double pass at a diagonal on the corner and that takes care of those little strips of grass.
Well I’m standing there watching, and I can hardly believe it! Such total disregard for the art of the corner! I am almost shaking, trembling at the shameless display of sloppy lawn mowing. I felt so helpless standing there letting someone else take over. If you had been watching me, you would have seen me using my hands and some body english to try to guide Alex’s turns.
It took every ounce of my energy to NOT go running out there, jump on that mower and take the wheel. I’d say something like, “Here, let me help you with that.”
It’s kind of funny to think about that, but we REALLY don’t like not being in control. And that can be a serious problem.
How about when it comes to God, and His plan for our lives and His timing.
In our passage today Paul brings up a classic example of someone trying to “Help” God out in fulfilling His promise.
Gal 4: 21 – 5:1 (NIV) 21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise. 24 These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written: "Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband." 28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son." 31 Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman. 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
PRAY
In this passage Paul refers to a story from the OT book of Genesis, and in v27 a quote from Isaiah.
This might seem like a strange passage here in the middle of Paul’s letter, but if we look at the context of the passage as part of the whole letter, we will see that Paul is using this story from Genesis to tell the Galatians something about themselves.
In order to understand this passage, we need to know what was going on With Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar back in the book of Genesis.
Lets start with the basics of the story in Genesis.
Abraham – God had made Abraham a promise. This should be familiar territory for us. We talked about this promise when we were in Galatians 3, where Paul has already identified the believers in Galatia, and believers today as true children of Abraham, children of the promise.
God promised Abraham that he would bless all nations through his offspring, and that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore.
The problem was, that Abraham and Sarah were getting way too old to have children
So they waited, and they waited, and they waited, and after a long time, we read in Genesis 16 that Abraham’s wife Sarah decided that God needed help in fulfilling His promise to Abraham
She figured that since she was in her seventies and had never had any sons, it was hopeless for her, so she suggested to Abraham that he sleep with her servant, Hagar.
Sarah said, “maybe I can build a family through her.”
That sounds like a ridiculous plan, doesn’t it? Sarah’s plan is to encourage her husband to have a sexual relationship outside of their marriage, clearly a sin, in order to help bring about the fulfillment of God’s promise and God’s plan.
Well, we can criticize Sarah, but if you will review your life, you just might find a similar story. We as fallen people with sinful natures are very good at talking ourselves into doing just about anything to get what we want. We can even talk ourselves into believing that God needs our help, and that the ends justify the means.
So anyway, Abraham agrees to Sarah’s plan. Now this is Abraham, the man of faith whose faith was credited to him as righteousness. Here he is in a definite weak moment, agreeing to this plan. He agrees, and Hagar conceives.
Now, as you can well imagine, this situation is getting pretty messy. You have Sarah, who thinks she can’t have children, you have Hagar, who is Sarah’s maidservant and gets pregnant by Sarah’s husband, and you have Abraham.
As soon as she is pregnant, Hagar begins to despise her mistress Sarah that’s what it says in Genesis 16, despise. Sarah blames Abraham for the mess. That is so human. It was her idea, but she blames Abraham. Abraham deserves some blame, because he agreed to the idea and carried it out. Sarah mistreats Hagar so she will run away, but the angel of the Lord comes to Hagar in the desert.
Gen 16: 9-12 9 Then the angel of the Lord told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her."
10 The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." 11 The angel of the Lord also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. 12 He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."
Notice he says I will increase you r descendants. When you see the angel of the Lord in the OT, that is God revealing Himself in visible form to a person, that is Jesus Himself making an appearance before His incarnation.
So Ishmael is born when Abraham is 86 years old, and Sarah is about 76.
No we go 13 years into the future from there.
13 years! In God’s timing, for God’s plan to fulfill His promise. It was His promise to fulfill.
13 years later Abraham is 99, Sarah is 89. God appears to Abraham.
Gen 17 1b-2 (NIV) 1 "...I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers."
God tells Abraham that he will be the father of many nations, that Kings will come from him, God will make him very fruitful.
God says I will confirm my covenant between me and you because this is the promise that God had already made to Abraham back in Genesis 15. We studied that promise when we were in Chapter 3 of Galatians back in May.
This is where God actually changes Abraham’s name from Abram to Abraham, and Sarah’s name from Sarai to Sarah. I use their covenant names through the whole story to lessen confusion. Circumcision was also established at this time for Abraham, Ishmael, and every male in Abraham’s household from that time forward to mark them as people of the covenant.
God tells Abraham that at the same time the following year, Sarah would give birth to Isaac. Abraham laughs to himself about having a son at the age of 100. He says “if only Ishmael might live under your blessing.”
Now if you ask me, that takes some guts. Abraham is basically saying I already took care of this for you God, I did it my way, I have a son. But God is not about to change His plans and He is not about to change His timing because Abraham and Sarah tried to take matters into their own hands. All they did was make things more complicated and a huge mess.
God does tell Abraham that He will bless Ishmael and make him the father of many nations. Of course many of those nations are the enemies of God’s people throughout history all the way up to present day. Talk about a mess.
So a year later, guess what, God kept his promise, Isaac was born.
Isaac was born, and Ishmael mocked him. Ishmael persecuted him.
Think about it, now we really have a messy situation. Ishmael is 14, he has been the only son until now, and now there is a son of Abraham and Sarah, his wife. Ishmael’s mother is Hagar, Sarah’s servant. This is not exactly a recipe for family peace.
Sarah sees what a mess they are now in, she sees Ishmael mistreating Isaac, so she tells Abraham in Genesis 21: 10 “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
It was her idea to have Ishmael through Hagar, but now that God has blessed her as he promised he would, she wants to get rid of her mistake.
So Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away. But just as God promised, Ishmael had many sons, and just as God promised, they lived in hostility toward all their brothers.
So the sin of Abraham and Sarah had far reaching consequences. There is always consequence for sin. Those consequences often affect people around us, people like Ishmael, who had no control over how he was born, but he was definitely affected by his father’s sin.
So those are the 2 sons of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael.
Lets look at our Galatians passage again, vs 22:
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.
Ishmael was born in the ordinary way, but Isaac was a miracle of God, he was born as the result of a promise.
Paul uses the story of Isaac and Ishmael to reinforce what he has been telling the believers in Galatia. He draws parallels between Isaac and the believers in Galatia, and between Ishmael and the false teachers. They can both claim to be children of Abraham, but with different mothers, Sarah and Hagar, and only one is a child of the promise.
We could spend a long time studying Paul’s comparison in detail, but we are just going to stick to the very basics of what he is illustrating.
Look at Galatians 4: verses 24 and 25:
24 These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.
Paul links Hagar to Mount Sinai, which is where God gave Moses and the people the Law. Then he says that this corresponds to Jerusalem, the capitol of the Jewish people, the geographic center of the law. Jerusalem was all about keeping the law. The false teachers in Galatia were all about keeping the law, the covenant of Mt. Sinai, they were enslaved by the law as Paul has already shown. Therefore the false teachers are rightfully called children of Hagar.
On the other hand, the believers in Galatia that Paul is writing to are children of the promise. Look at vs 26-28:
Gal 4: 26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written: "Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband." 28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise
The Jerusalem above is the Kingdom of God. In vs 27 Paul is quoting from Isaiah 54 verse 1. This was a prophecy for Israel when they were in captivity in Babylon. This was a barren time for them. They are promised the restoration of Israel, “more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.” She will one day have more children than ever before.
The Jewish people saw this as a prophecy of not only the restoration of Israel, but of a time when many Gentiles would turn to God and become Israelites, becoming full members of the Jewish nation.
Paul sees the fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth and growth of the church. Anyone who accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savoir is truly a child of the promise.
And just like Isaac, their birth, our birth, our re-birth as Christians is a miracle of God.
Jesus came, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Having Jesus as your Lord and Savoir and living your life for Him means being free of the slavery of the law.
Not freed from God’s plan but freed for it. God’s plan was for the law to lead us to Christ. God’s plan was for Jesus to die on the cross to pay for our sins, God’s plan was for Jesus to walk out of that tomb on the third day and give us the opportunity for new life, to have a relationship with Him. Our relationship with Jesus gives us the freedom to finally be able to become more like Him, to live for Him and let Him live through us. Our desires begin to match His desires and that is where real freedom comes from. We are able to do what we want because we want what he wants, and the result is the ability to not sin, to act like Jesus because He lives in us, not because we are following rules out of fear. That is real freedom.
Paul continues his comparisons in verses 29 and 30:
Gal 4: 29 At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son."
Just as Ishmael persecuted Isaac, the false teachers, children of Hagar, spiritual brothers of Ishmael are persecuting the believers of Galatia, children of the free woman Sarah, spiritual brothers of Isaac by misleading them, trying to convince them to be chained by social and ceremonial aspects of the law like circumcision.
Paul quotes Sarah from Genesis in saying get rid of the slave woman and her son. In other words, get rid of and have nothing to do with these false teachers.
Verse 31 and the first verse of chapter 5 follow the same thought:
31 Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman. 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
So how does the story of Isaac and Ishmael affect us today?
Well, as I studied this week, I was struck by parallels between this story and a story in my own life. I resisted somewhat, I tried to ignore it, I asked told God surely this isn’t what you want me to tell them, but He wouldn’t let me off the hook.
**I have removed the actual illustration because it was of a very personal nature. It was an example from my own life where I tried to "help God" speed things up and get them done how I wanted them to be done. Needless to say the effects were disastrous and far reaching in my life and the lives of my loved ones.**
Like Abraham, I decided to help God with His plan.
Just like Abraham I wanted to do things in MY timing and in MY strength.
Just like Abraham it was a sin.
Just like Abraham, that sin brought disastrous results, far reaching results that affect the people around us, the people we care most about.
Everything has eventually worked out with God’s help, he has turned our disaster into blessings. It is all working out according to God’s plan and promise. God doesn’t break any of His promises. He catches us when He says to jump, and even when we try to take off on our own, He picks us up and sets us back on our feet.
But sin always has consequences. Who knows what kind of blessings I may have given up by trying to take a short cut to help God do His job.
What does God want you to do today? He wants you to learn from the example in scripture. He wants you to learn from Abraham’s mistake, he wants you to learn from my mistake, so he won’t have to teach you the hard way.
If God is leading you to do something or to go somewhere, stay in constant prayer. Pray over each and ever step you take. If you are proceeding according to His timing and His plan, the Holy Spirit will give you a sense of peace about it.
When we moved down here, I knew I was coming to the right place, but leaving that house in G.C. before we had anything settled did not leave me with a sense of peace, anything but - and that should have stopped me.
Sometimes God WILL ask you to do something that doesn’t seem to make sense, but he will always give you a sense of peace about it. If that peace is missing, it is time to stop and hit your knees and pray for guidance.
If you have already stepped into the mess like I did, understand that you cannot go back in time to fix it. The cat is already out of the bag. Damage has already been done. After Hagar conceived, There was nothing Abraham could do to take back what he had done. After that late notice came, there was nothing I could do to go back and undo what had already taken place
If you are in that spot, you have to start from where you are and seek God’s will. You don’t want to continue on your own and make things worse. God still has a plan, and it still involves you. You may have given up some blessings through your rebellion, but that’s the great thing about God, his grace. He still has much in store for us. Take your lumps, see it as a learning experience and an opportunity to grow spiritually. Re-commit yourself to yielding to the Holy Spirit, take up your cross and follow Jesus.
If you aren’t following Jesus, if you don’t have a relationship with Him, then you are in the biggest mess of all. You have to start where you are. Has God been talking to you, has He been knocking on the door of your heart? He loves you. He sent His son to die for you and He wants you to have a real relationship with Him. It starts by being honest about who you are, a hopeless sinner who is separated from God by your sin. A sinner with no purpose in life and no hope for peace. But all of that can change if you accept Christ as your Lord and Savoir. If you repent, turn away from your sin, believe in Jesus as the son of God who died to pay for your sins and rose again. If you ask Him for forgiveness and submit to Him giving Him control of your entire life, it can all change, you can have purpose in your life, you can have real hope. It all comes through Jesus Christ – accept His free gift of eternal and abundant life today.
Pray
